Coffee whiteners can be in liquid or powder forms. Powdered forms tend to be less able to simulate the qualities of traditional dairy creamers, such as color, body and texture, and often fail to achieve complete dissolution.
Liquid whiteners are used widely in homes, offices, restaurants, workplaces, and other establishments to whiten and flavor beverages such as coffee and tea, and the market for non-dairy creamers that provide a whitening quality is rapidly growing. The United States is the market leader for this type of product.
Unfortunately, liquid dairy creamers tend to deteriorate rapidly, even when stored at refrigeration temperatures. One possible solution is to use a non-dairy whitener, but this introduces new challenges of creating a product that mimics the feeling of dairy, while offering the desired stability. Specific stability concerns include the ability to maintain a homogeneous product without separation or sedimentation of components during storage at room temperature and elevated temperatures for several months.
Current consumer trends demonstrate increased consumption of reduced-fat and fat-free products, including dairy products such as creamers. Fat present in creamers typically takes the form of trans-fatty acids, and/or saturated fat, which, in accordance with health guidelines, consumers are reducing or eliminating consumption. Fat present in creamers is typically emulsified into fine oil droplets of about 0.2 to 1 micron in diameter resulting in the whitening power created by light scattering by these tiny particles. Since fat/oil emulsions provide a whitening quality, the removal thereof requires an increase in whitening capability of the creamer. This can be achieved by the addition of more of a whitening component, but it is difficult to maintain the whitening component in suspension. Therefore, it is difficult to provide fat-free, or even low fat, whiteners, without diminishing their whitening capacity as compared to conventional full-fat products, and further without compromising stability. Fat also provides flavor and body, so it is a further challenge to prepare a fat-free or reduced-fat whitener that maintains the same satisfaction as a full-fat product.
A desired whitener should be stable physically during storage and retain a constant viscosity over time. When added to coffee or similar beverages, the product should provide a good whitening capacity, dissolve rapidly and remain stable in a hot acidic environment with no separation of components, e.g., no marbling, serum separation, or sedimentation.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,935,325 describes a freeze-thaw stable coffee whitener. The disclosed coffee whitener is made with water, vegetable fat, vegetable protein, carbohydrates, buffering salt, emulsifiers and other ingredients. Such whiteners are inconvenient due to the need to thaw the product prior to use, and are high in cost due to handling and storage requirements.
European Patent Application No. 0 457 002 describes a liquid coffee whitener composed of fat or oil, water, carbohydrate and an amount of a protein hydrolysate effective to provide a stable emulsion. However, this coffee whitener is not shelf-stable.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,748,028 discloses an aseptic fluid coffee whitener and process for preparing the same. The process includes ultra-high temperature (UHT) sterilization of a mixture of water, vegetable fat, emulsifiers, a milk protein, salt and other ingredients, cooling, homogenizing and cooling the mixture, and filling the resulting liquid in an aseptic container under aseptic conditions. The main disadvantage of the coffee whiteners disclosed by the patent is the high level of fat in the creamer, and the insufficient whitening power of the reduced-fat version of the creamer.
Thus, there is a need for a liquid shelf-stable whitener, especially fat-free and low-fat, which has a high whitening capacity, good physical and chemical stability throughout the duration of its shelf-life, without creaming, sedimentation, or altered flavor. The whitener must also have suitable viscosity and pleasant mouth-feel, without phase separation when added to beverages such as coffee.
The present invention provides a oil-free whitener having the qualities set forth above, and therefore satisfies a need in the art.